DESPERATELY SEEKING BABIES

Maine’s declining school enrollment may not seem like an economic-development issue, but the number of kids in a community and its vitality are intimately intertwined. That is why countries with dwindling birth rates, especially in Europe, are desperate to reverse the trend. Maine can empathize.

In Germany, the birth rate has dropped to 8.7 births per 1,000 people, one of the lowest rates in Europe. To encourage families to have more babies, the national government has dramatically increased spending on child care. Plans to subsidize the pensions of parents are being debated. That country already makes a substantial effort – in 1998, it devoted 2.7 percent of gross domestic product to public spending on family support, according to the current issue of The Economist magazine. The United States dedicates 0.5 percent of GDP to family support.

In Italy, where the birth rate also hovers below 9 births per 1,000 people, the government began this month to hand out $1,200 to couples for every child beyond their first. These countries are keen to increase birth rates to avert financial problems with their health care and pension systems and, most importantly, to restore a sense of “economic dynamism,” according to the magazine.

Maine, too, could use some economic dynamism. It is well known that the state’s young people are leaving its rural areas, leaving behind an aging and more needy population. According to the 2000 census, Maine had the lowest birth rate in the nation with 10.9 births per 1,000 people, well below the national average of 14. Maine’s rate had dropped to 10.5 births per 1,000 in 2002, according to the Centers for Disease Control. In seven counties, the death rate exceeds the birth rate. Not a formula for economic vitality.

Improving the state’s economy, which many governors have tried to do, will bring more jobs to Maine and more workers, presumably many with a young family in tow or on the horizon. In addition, a more vibrant economy will entice some of the state’s young people to stay and start families here.

A multitude of studies have given Maine high marks as a place to raise children – it is safe, its infant mortality rate is low, the schools are good – but the state, especially the northern part, has not been able to do much with these rankings to get new businesses and their workers to come here. The result is economic malaise, followed by further drops in the number of children, followed by a worsening economy.

In the end, if more working-age people move to Maine, taxes can be collected from more people and lowered for all, even as essential services such as education receive more funding. The alternative is the slow decline, making Maine look like “old Europe,” only without the wine and castles.